invented by tbe people of Timur, nor have they ever adopted the written characters
of any foreign people. The rude state of the country is attested by the condition of
the arts. T h e,plough, although the buffalo be abundant, and here of great size,
strength and docility, is unknown and the only agricultural implements of the
aboriginal inhabitants is a wooden hoe, and a stick sharpened at the end. Owing to
the hilly nature of the land, and probably also its sterility, rice is little cultivated,
and irrigation but rarely had recourse to. Maiz is the. chief bread-corn of the
Timurians, and as this is an undoubted American plant, introduced by Europeans,
it is certain that the people must have been even poorer and fewer in number than
they are now, before the arrival of Europeans. Their fishing is conducted in the
same fashion, and this is the account given of it by the anonymous writer already
quoted. “ Fish,” says he, “ can scarcely be considered as an article of subsistence,
as there are hardly any of the natives who will venture into a canoe. And almost
the only method they have of taking them is by building successive walls of stone,
one without the other, and within the reach of the tide, in places where the coast is
flat enough to admit it, so as to prevent the return of the fish when the water
ebbs.”
The religion of the people of Timur seems to be a kind of demonology, and is well
described by the writer just quoted. “The religion of the island,” says he, “ is
pagan. Mo3t of the princes, however, profess Christianity, but are at the same time
entirely guided by their pagan priests and customs. There does not appear to be a
single convert to Islamism on the island. Their deities are represented by particular
stones and trees, and although the same stones or trees are generally worshipped by
successive generations, instances are said to occur of their changing them. They
style these Nieto, or evil spirits, considering the sun and moon as the good spirits,
the latter as the superior. They conceive it to be impossible that their good spirits
should occasion them any harm, and therefore deem it unnecessary to pray to them.
But they pray to the Nietos to avoid the evils they are otherwise liable to suffer.
Sacrifices are common, generally, of buffaloes, hogs, sheep, or fowls, but sometimes of
a human being. An annual sacrifice of a virgin used to be made to the sharks and
alligators close to the town of Koepang, until the interference of the Dutch government
put a stop to it about 30 years ago. At the interment of a sovereign prince
a male slave is to the present day buried alive with him, to be ready to wait on
him in the world to come. This used to take place immediately in the neighbourhood
of Koepang, but has also been put a stop to by the Dutch. I t still exists throughout
the interior. The natives place great reliance on auguries, particularly from the
inspection o fth e entrails of animals, and, indeed, never embark in any undertaking
without first obtaining a lucky omen. On occasions which concern the State, a buffalo
is generally slain, but on private account, usually a chicken. The liver is the part
chiefly attended to.” |I f to these accounts we add “ head stealing,” which is practised,
it is certain that the people of Timur are not more advanced than the savages of
Borneo, and, indeed, are not even on an equality with some of these.
With respect to the population of Timur it is evident, from its social condition,
that nothing better than reasonable conjecture can be offered. We may be quite
sure, however, that in relation to extent it must be very small. The population of
the district of Koepang, so long under the administration of the Dutch, numbers
only 7000. I t is asserted, however, that subject to the government ofthe Netherlands,
there are 40,000 more. This would make 47,000 for the Dutch part of the
island, which is the most populous and undoubtedly the best governed, and it is
supposed to embrace half the whole island. Of the population of the Portuguese
portion we know nothing, but supposing it, which is not likely, to be equally
populous with the Dutch, t he entire population of the island would be no more
than 94,000, or 9-58 to the square mile. The population in this case would be
about one-eighth part of that of the little island of Bali, which is barely one-sixth
part of its size. Such is the vast difference in the results of eminent fertility on the
one side, and to say the least, the absence of it on the other.
Timur appears to have been well known by this name before the arrival of the
Portuguese in the Archipelago, and the Malays and Javanese to have extended
their trade to it. It was probably the furthest limit of their ordinary trade in a
south-easterly direction, and hence most likely the name which in Malay, but not in
Javanese, signifies “ the East.” Barbosa, evidently on native authority, for his
countrymen had not yet penetrated so far east in the Archipelago, thus refers to it
in describing the course of native trade. “ Passing the island of Java Major,” (the
real Java and not Sumatra, the Java Major of Marco Polo), “ there occur many
TIMUR-LAUT 435 TIN
other islands, great and small, inhabited by Gentiles speaking their own proper
languages. In Timur is produced much white sandal wood, and those who go to
buy it, take thither iron, needles, large and small knives, swords, cloths of Cambay
and Pulicate, porcelain cups, beads of all sorts, tin, quicksilver, and lead. Besides
sandal wood they_ take away from that island honey, bees’-wax, slaves, and some
little silver which is found in it. With the exception of the silver, which ought to
have been gold, this is a correct account of the trade of Timur, such as it was
conducted for three centuries after Barbosa wrote, and indeed with little difference,
such as it is at the present day. The companions of Magellan touched at
Timur on ^ e ì r return to Spain in 1522, and Pigafetta’s account of it is surprisingly
correct. All the trade^ in sandal-wood and bees’-wax, conducted by the people of
Malacca and Java is carried on at this place (Cabanaza ?), and, in fact, we found here
a junk which came from Luzon for the purchase of sandal wood, for white sandal
grows only m this country.”—Primo Viaggio, p. 171. The Mahommedans never
have gained any footing in Timur, nor to have made any conversions. The
inhabitants, indeed, seem to have been too rude and poor to have been capable of
receiving any strong religious impression whatever. Christianity itself, has fared not
much better, for in the Dutch half of the island, the total number of native Christians
is no more than 1200. I t is probable they are more numerous within the Portuguese
territory, but on this subject we are without information. When it was that the
Portuguese first formed establishments in Timur I am not aware, but in 1613 they
they were driven by the Dutch from the western end of the island, and owe their
possession of the eastern, only to the accident of the peace concluded between the two
nations on the separation of Portugal from Spain and the restoration to the throne of
tue first, of the house of Braganza.
TIMUR-LAUT (Pulo), literally, “ sea-ward Timur,” or rather sea-ward Timur
Islands. See Tennimber islands.,
TIN, in Malay and Javanese timah. The word, however, is used as a generic
term for both tin and lead, the epithet “ white,” or “ flowery,”—putih and sari, being
given to tin itself, and that of “ blank,” itam, to lead, a metal with which being
entirely a foreign product, the Malayan nations are but little acquainted. The word
timah, without any change, extends to all the languages of the western portion of the
Archipelago, and is, no doubt, the same which appears in the languages of the Philippines,
as tinga. I t is even probably the tumora of the languages of Celebes. In the
ruder languages, however, such as those of Floris and Timur, it has names distinct
from the Malayan, probably epithets,_ as it is not likely that the metal should have
original and specific names in countries which do not produce it, and the inhabitants
of which know it only as a foreign and imported commodity. In the polite
language of Java, the name for it is ràjasa, which is the Sanscrit adjective “ bright,” or
“ shining. ’ The people of Madagascar have no name for it but what signifies “ white
iron vi-futsi, both of which words are, most probably, corruptions of the two Malayan
words, with the same meaning, bàsih-putìh.
What may be called the Malayan tin district, or tin field, is, beyond all comparison,
the most extensive and the richest in the world, for it stretches from Tavoy
in the 14 of north latitude, to Billiton, in the 3° of south latitude, that is, over seventeen
degrees of latitude, and ten of longitude. Tin has been found or worked in a
great many localities within these wide bounds, as in the British territory of the Ten-
nasserim coast,^ in the Siamese island of Junk-Ceylon,—in various parts of the continental
territories of the Malayan States, and in several of the islands at the eastern
end of the Straits of Malacca. Thè ore would seem only to become the more abundant
as it approaches its termination at Banca and Billiton. The localities richest in tin
are ascertained, to be those near the junction of the sandstone with the granite, and
all the countries rich in tin are also observed to be so in iron. All the ore heretofore
worked, it should be noticed, has been found in the alluvion, or detritus of ancient
mountains,—-what is called in mining language “ stream-works,”—obtained, in fact,
by washing the soil in the same manner as, for the most part, gold in Australia and
' . r no ore has ever been obtained by mining the rock containing veins of
it, although it has been traced to them. I t must also be remembered that the greater
part of the tin district is covered with an immense forest, and has not been explored
so that tin may reasonably be expected to be found in many situations which have
hitherto remained unexamined. The supply of tin from the Malayan countries promises
to last for at least as many ages as that of the coal of England. I t is produced, in fact,
in quantity proportionate to the labour and capital invested in working it, and without
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